Fewer foreign science graduates coming to the US?

"I received my first degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1977," Suresh told PCAST in his first appearance before the 24-member White House advisory body. "And in my graduating class, covering all types of engineering, there were 250 students. More than 80% of them had the opportunity to come to the United States to pursue graduate studies, and practically all of them took [that opportunity]. They came here, and they stayed, and all of them became U.S. citizens or permanent residents, playing a significant role in research, academia, industry, and business."

Fast forward 3 decades, he said, and the picture has changed dramatically. "I was in India just 4 days ago and was able to update my data," he said. "Each of the IIT campuses still graduates about 250 students. And more than 80% of last year's graduates had the same opportunity to come to the United States. But this time, only 16% of them took it. And it was not the top 16%."

It just could be that the suffocating US religiosity or the moronic religious zealots in our congress are choking off the supply of science graduates coming to our country with a major depressing effect on US science.

Replies to This Discussion

The reduction in Indian immigrant graduates has nothing to do with religious zealots or xenophobia, more to do with the fact that the Indian economy is expanding exponentially and there are more opportunities for them on their home turf. Indian students now consider some of their home grown Universities to be more desirable than Harvard, MIT, Oxford or Cambridge and are beginning to shun the idea of travelling to the US or UK to study and work. India has a giant burgeoning automotive and aerospace industry, a booming manufacturing sector and is the preferred destination for much of the outsourcing from the west.